Long Beach police shoot driver after ‘erratic’ high-speed chase

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Police tape marks the dead end in Bellflower where a stolen-car chase ended Tuesday, April 25, 2017, with officers opening fire, killing one suspect. Another was taken into custody. (Photo by Jeremiah Dobruck/Long Beach Press-Telegram)

Police arrest the passenger of a car who led authorities on a chase through Long Beach and on several freeways before ending in Bellflower. (Courtesy of KABC/video footage).

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Police arrest the passenger of a car who led authorities on a chase through Long Beach and on several freeways before ending in Bellflower. (Courtesy of KABC/video footage).

Police boxed in a suspect’s car around 6:40 a.m. Tuesday when it entered a business parking lot on Foster Road, where it dead-ends just east of Woodruff Avenue in Bellflower. (Courtesy of KABC/video footage)

Police shot to death the driver of a stolen car who led officers on a high-speed chase that began in Long Beach and ended with a barrage of gunfire in a Bellflower cul-de-sac early Tuesday morning, according to authorities.

Officers also arrested a passenger who was not hurt, police said.

The chase began around 5:55 a.m. when police received a LoJack notification that a car stolen from Los Angles was now near the intersection of Paramount and Artesia boulevards in North Long Beach, according to Long Beach police spokesman Sgt. Brad Johnson.

When officers tried to pull over the car, the driver sped off, Johnson said.

This sparked a pursuit that led officers through multiple cities over surface streets and onto the 710 Freeway, the 91 Freeway, the 105 Freeway, and the 605 Freeway.

Johnson said the car was driven “very erratically,” and at one point, a hand gun was thrown out of the vehicle.

The chase also played out on live TV, which showed the motorist ran red lights and sped around cars, nearly overturning at one point.

Eventually, the chase led to the city of Bellflower, where police boxed in the car around 6:40 a.m. when it entered a business parking lot on Foster Road where it dead-ends just east of Woodruff Avenue.

At that point, multiple Long Beach police officers shot at the car, according to Johnson.

Video footage from local TV stations appeared to show the car driving toward officers when they opened fire.

Johnson said police are still investigating exactly how many shots were fired and what exactly prompted officers to pull the trigger.

Moises Cordoza, a neighbor who lives nearby, said he woke up to the sound of the gunfire.

“It was a rapid fire, maybe six to 10 gunshots,” he said.

Cordoza said he and his father went into their backyard with a pair of binoculars and saw two men in the car, which was facing a group of more than a dozen officers with their guns drawn.

The front and driver’s side of the car had multiple bullet holes in it, and the driver was slumped over, according to Cordoza.

He said he watched police yelling orders to the passenger, who had his hands up.

“They had the passenger crawl out the driver’s-side window,” Cordoza said.

After cuffing the passenger, officers approached the car with guns drawn and dragged the driver’s limp body out, according to Cordoza.

“You could tell he was already done,” he said. “He was dead.”

Officers tried to save the man’s life after pulling him from the car, but he was declared dead at the scene, according to Johnson.

Authorities haven’t identified either man or said what charges the passenger was booked on.

Johnson said police are investigating whether the men and the car are connected to other recent crimes.

“When you have people in stolen cars with guns, that’s not normal,” he said.

Johnson later clarified that police don’t know if there was more than one gun in the car.

Officers recovered the weapon thrown out during the chase but hadn’t yet searched the vehicle, he said.

Jeremiah Dobruck is the public safety and breaking news reporter at the Long Beach Press-Telegram. He's a SoCal native who has covered crime, courts and mayhem at news outlets in Los Angeles, Orange County and New York City since 2011.